IP Law Daily, WORTH NOTING—Other IP law developments, (Oct 24, 2025)

By WK Editorial Staff

A periodic roundup of other items of interest to the Intellectual Property community.

COPYRIGHT—N.D. Cal.: Font designer Nicky Laatz was not entitled to certification for interlocutory review of a district court’s order granting defendant Zazzle Inc.’s motion for reconsideration of summary judgment, the federal district court in San Jose has ruled. In its initial summary judgment opinion, the court ruled that Laatz could not claim her work as font data itself because of the lack of human authorship (the fonts were designed with the aid of software from Adobe Illustrator and FontLab Studio), but the court said a jury could decide whether the registration was valid as a computer program. On reconsideration, the court dismissed the entire copyright claim because while Laatz had a plausible claim to the source code to the fonts, she did not register the fonts as source code, and therefore, she did not have a valid copyright. Laatz sought interlocutory appeal on the question regarding whether satisfaction of section 411(a)’s pre-suit registration requirement may be subsequently invalidated based on inaccurate information in the application is a controlling issue of law. However, section 411’s pre-suit registration requirement is a pure question of law that does not depend on a material dispute of fact, the court said, adding that satisfaction of this requirement is a threshold issue in determining whether a plaintiff has a private cause of action under the Copyright Act. The court also rejected Laatz conclusory argument that reasonable jurists could differ on the issues based on the language of section 411 and existing case law (Laatz v. Zazzle, Inc., No. 5:22-cv-04844-BLF (N.D. Cal. Oct. 20, 2025)).

PATENT—Fed. Cir.: A Patent Trial and Appeal Board decision affirming an examiner’s rejection of certain claims of U.S. Patent Application No. 15/648,728, claiming carrier substrates used to manufacture semiconductor components, as obvious has been affirmed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit because the patent owner had forfeited the arguments it raises on appeal (In re X-Fab Semiconductor Foundries GmbH, No. 24-1337 (Fed. Cir. Oct. 22, 2025)).

PATENT—Fed. Cir.: A New York federal district court did not err in dismissing an inventor’s suit against several aircraft manufacturers for infringement of U.S. Patent No. 7,140,873, directed to a process for pretreating fuels, because the inventor did not provide any allegations explaining how the accused aircraft engines performed the steps articulated in the ’873 patent, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has decided. However, in view of Spirit Airlines’ pending bankruptcy proceedings, the case remained stayed as to Spirit Airlines and the decision applied only to the other appellees (House v. General Electric Co., No. 25-1294 (Fed. Cir. Oct. 22, 2025)).

Attorneys: Chad E. Deveaux (Bartko Pavia LLP) for Nicky Laatz. Rachel M. Kassabian (Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP) for Zazzle, Inc. Michael J. House, pro se. Oleg Khariton (Dinsmore & Shohl LLP) for General Electric Co., GE Aviation and GE Aerospace. Elana Araj (Greenberg Traurig LLP) for X-Fab Semiconductor Foundries GmbH. Monica Barnes Lateef, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, for John A. Squires.

Companies: Zazzle, Inc.; General Electric Co., GE Aviation; GE Aerospace; X-Fab Semiconductor Foundries GmbH

News: Copyright Patent TechnologyInternet USPTO FedCirNews NewYorkNews CaliforniaNews